One of the great things about sports is how small the things that often turn a game, series or whole season can be. 

I really came to consider this when the normally unflappable Nick Backstrom missed an empty wraparound goal in the playoffs last season.  If you remember back, the Capitals are in Pittsburg for game 3 of the quarter finals and early in the first period Backstrom fakes a deke and goes for the wrap around.  He had everyone beat.  They all bit and he's alone on he far side of the net, but the young Swede hurried his attempt and missed the net.  No biggie.  Not every chance was meant to be.  But, as fate would have it, this one really counted... unfortunately.  This was at the point when the Caps had a 2-0 game lead, and in game three at the Pens barn would have gone up 2-0 early in the first.

What would have happened if Backstrom waits a half-second longer and pots that one?  It doesn't seem like much of a stretch to say the game, and the series, might have been over at that point.  And if the Caps win that series, from there... Well to quote Morgan Freeman in Shawshank... "that's just a s*!tty pipe dream."

Turning Points

Sometimes they aren't always obvious, but last night was the proverbial shovel to the face:

A nice saucer from Knub to land flat on Ovie's stick (which :28 later begat an empty net rebound), and this game is donsey.

Am I wrong?  What was your turning point of last night's game.

Honorable mention: Semin drawing the holding penalty (while extending his arm for leverage of his own-- Jordan-rules on that call perhaps?).